The Wabash Railroad

A passenger train speeding through Raymond in the 1960's 

Like many small towns, Raymond was the product of the railroad expansion across the United States in the nineteenth century. Nimrod McElroy and Ishmael McGowan owned most of the land that Raymond was built on, and in 1870, they sold a strip of land to the Wabash Railroad officials who were expanding the railroad tracks from Decatur to St. Louis. The following spring, the post office opened and our town (originally called Lulu) was born.

The railroad runs through Raymond from the northeast to the southwest, and W.R.W. O'Bannon platted the town based on the direction of the railroad tracks rather than by using a compass. The depot was built in 1872. Two years later, D.J. Parrott built a large elevator near the railroad crossing, and the village of Raymond became well known for having one of the largest and most extensive elevators on the line of the St. Louis Division of the Wabash Railroad.

Mr. David Sorrell*, a former Raymond resident who moved to Texas, contributed to a column in "The Raymond News" entitled As I Remember. The following excerpt from one of his columns pertaining to the depot was printed in the Raymond Centennial Book that was published in 1971:

Howard Ling was the first station agent. Agent Ling, as I remember, had a full blue uniform which he wore, without the long swallowtail coat at all times except when it was passenger train time, and then he would don his fine brass buttoned coat and go out to meet the train, confer with the conductor, and generally be seen and admired by the gathered crowd. Being a railroad agent in those days was a very important thing.

The arrival of any of the five local passenger trains was always an interesting event of our small town day. An hour or so before the train was due, the town loafers and folks who were going to Litchfield, Harvel, Honey Bend, or Tayloville, would begin to come across the long platform to the depot. The travelers could be told from the loafers by the bags or valises they carried.

Inside the middle rooms was the ticket office on one end and on the other was the half round table and its circle of ever clattering telegraph instruments. Their clatter never seemed to cease. The telegraph instruments brought death messages, the returns of a presidential election, and the major league baseball scores. Sometimes the train would bring a pine box bearing the body of a man or woman who had gone out into the world and had been brought back to the old hometown for burial. The night passenger train brought up the daily St. Louis Chronicle and the Post Dispatch. The railroad and all its appurtenances was the town’s link with the outside world.

* In the Centennial Book, the name was spelled Sorrell with no "s." It occurs to me that his name might have been "Sorrells." I plan to try and find his original columns in the archived issues of The Raymond News this summer.

While reading through some Raymond history, I found some other interesting notes pertaining to the railroad:

• In the early 1900’s, a passenger train accident occurred about one mile north of Raymond, injuring many people. It was said that people were carried into town on stretchers and churches were used as first aid stations.
  
• In 1904, folks from Raymond boarded trains to attend the World’s Fair in St. Louis.
  
• In 1918, about 50 trains a day ran through town and there was an agent on duty 24 hours a day.

Some of my classmates and I were fortunate to take a train ride through Raymond once. For our first grade class trip, we traveled from Litchfield to Taylorville on the train. We had a picnic at the Taylorville park and then the school bus picked us up and brought us back home. It was a big deal.